


staring down the barrel (to the bullets i can't stop)

by trevino



Series: harringrove songfics [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Homophobic Language, M/M, Neil Hargrove is His Own Warning, Possible Underage Drinking, Songfic, f slur warning, past relationship woes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27639533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trevino/pseuds/trevino
Summary: distance makes the heart grow fonder, but it also makes it acheorwalking away sometimes brings you right back to where you needed to be
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: harringrove songfics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011231
Kudos: 33





	staring down the barrel (to the bullets i can't stop)

**Author's Note:**

> hi i'm back again with another song fic!
> 
> i really hope y'all are liking these so far, and as always i'd love song recs for these or comments/feedback
> 
> <3

_ Oh no, I think I'm catching feelings _

_ And I don't know if this is empathy I feel _

_ Just hold on _

_ Remember why you said this was the last time? _

(sex (catching feelings) ~ eden)

It’s Steve’s freshman year of college, the winter of 1986, and he’s ready to go a little wild. There are no monsters in Bloomington, Indiana— at least, not the ones he’s used to— so other than pop quizzes, obnoxious frat boys, and his father hounding him to choose a “respectable” major instead of Education or Social Work, he’s on his own.

And that means King Steve is back where he belongs.

Well, it’s not quite how it was before; he’s not nearly as much of a dick as he once was, probably due to the whole surviving-the-end-of-the-world thing, and he doesn’t have the whole only-hot-guy-in-a-small-town vibe going for him anymore, but still. He makes friends quickly, meets some girls he likes, and finds himself at way more parties than is considered healthy.

But his luck runs out, as it always does.

Because at the Phi Kappa party Friday night, sitting in a large circle on sticky carpet for a rousing round of Truth or Dare (where no one ever picks “Truth”), he spies a familiar face across the room.

Billy Hargrove, real as ever, with far too much skin showing for the brisk November night, teeth glinting white under the strings of out-of-season Christmas lights, and two girls draped over his shoulders.

( _ Why is this happening to me?  _ Steve thinks to himself as he sips from his nearly-tepid bear and awaits his turn at the game.  _ Why couldn’t he have stayed away? _ )

~

Leaving Hawkins healed wounds in Steve that he never realized he had, but opened new ones all the same. His parents had been proud of him, sure, for making it into college after all, and that was a feeling he hadn’t expected to know. He left with a good chunk of money saved up too, after nearly a year of working at the Family Video, and it was nice knowing he wouldn’t have to rely on their allowance (as it came with more strings attached than a marionette) as much anymore. And watching the town fade away in his rearview mirror— the town that had caused him so much heartbreak, and nearly his life once or twice— wasn’t so bad after all.

But it hurt, saying goodbye to his pack of misfit children (even though he’d never admit it to Dustin’s face, he missed that kid like hell). Max surprised him most of all, her eyes red with more tears than he’d ever expected to see from such a stern young girl. And it hurt, watching Nancy and Jonathan traipsing off to New York City to “make it big” or whatever it was they were going to do. That so easily could’ve been his life, the perfect girl in a perfect world. Instead, he drove away alone, little more than two duffle bags and an overstuffed suitcase full of his favorite magazines, a book or two, and the spike-studded bat he hid stealthily from his parents.

The worst of it, though, was saying goodbye to the one person he never expected to miss.

(Especially since he couldn’t tell a single soul about it.)

There’s no real way to tell your friends— particularly ones who had their own share of grievances with the man in question— that for nearly six months, he’d been sleeping with the enemy. 

And the enemy goes by the name of Billy Hargrove.

He wasn’t exactly sure how it had started, really. After everything that went down at the Starcourt Mall (and none of them liked to talk about that, much less Billy himself), after they experienced a summer of impossibilities and somehow came out the other side more or less unscathed, it all just came out of nowhere.

That is, the kissing, and the touching, and the pretending-not-to-be-in-love.

At least, that’s how Steve saw it. He never was quite sure what Billy thought about it all.

Not like he was going to ask, anyway. He was much too happy to stay preoccupied with the danger of it all; like hiding in the backseat of Billy’s Camaro in the parking lot of the arcade while the kids played  _ Galaga _ . Or sneaking out to the quarry when everyone else was engrossed in an afternoon of D&D. Or stealing sneaky, flirty glances across the table while they pretended to hate each other over pizza.

Because hating each other was a pretty solid alibi for secretly becoming friends with Billy Hargrove. And then more than friends (whatever that might be).

For a while, that was enough.

Steve was more than happy to just kiss Billy: to memorize the way the boy’s unstyled curls felt in between Steve’s fingers when they woke up together in the empty mansion that he once hated, to hold hands so tightly it felt like they’d never be able to let go while they watched reruns of his mother’s soap operas, to stare into those eyes that were as blue as California seas, as pristine as the beaches he always wished he’d see.

It was enough, and then it wasn’t.

He should’ve known better, really, than to fall in love with someone like Billy Hargrove. He knew exactly what kind of boy he was, the love ‘em and leave ‘em type; hell, Billy would barely admit to himself that he was gay (though when he did, it was always tainted with the begrudging realization that Steve, who was now identifying semi-comfortably as bisexual, had to do much less hiding than he did), much less to his own sister, or the boy he was making out with every night. Every time Steve pushed his buttons, he could feel Billy pulling away, bit by bit.

And eventually, there weren’t enough bits left to spare.

~

_ It was only a week before Steve left for Indiana University, before he made the mind-numbing three hour drive through cornfields and pothole-ridden highways, and he was spending every waking moment— and even in his dreams— trying to convince Billy to join him. _

_ Put simply, it wasn’t going very well. _

_ “I’m not your little girlfriend, Harrington, or Nancy fuckin’ Wheeler or some shit like that. I’m not gonna follow you to the ends of the earth, much less to Bloomington. I’m getting the hell out of this stupid state, and I’m not looking back,” Billy said for the millionth time, shifting away from him on the couch (grimacing a little, but Steve barely noticed), and the expansive living room had never felt more empty until this moment. _

_ “But…” Steve sighed, barely fighting back a wave of tears that had been itching to fall. “But why not? I’m getting an apartment, not staying in those crappy dorms, you could just stay with me and no one would have to know. We could start a  _ life _ together, Billy, just you and me. Just us.” _

_ The boy had rolled his eyes at that, and Steve wished he hadn’t seen it. Something had already felt off, so incredibly unsteady, that day, and this wasn’t helping. (Neither was Billy’s refusal to take off his button-down or leather jacket, despite the fact that it was August and far too hot for that.) _

_ “There  _ is _ no us, man. It’s just fucking, you know that.”  _

_ Billy had kissed him, then, and if he could taste the salty bite of tears on Steve’s lips, he didn’t say a word. (If only because he couldn’t tell if they were Steve’s tears or his own.) Not even when the clock struck midnight and Billy had bolted out of the house, a muttered excuse that neither of them even believed hanging in the air. _

_ Steve had sat there on the couch, head in his hands, until the sun rose the next morning.  _

_ That line— “there’s no us”— left a bitter taste in Steve’s mouth all the way to Bloomington six days later. _

~

So that was the end of that.

Steve Harrington, alone again, even in a crowded room.

But life goes on, right?

He moves into an all-too-empty apartment, learns how to shotgun a beer better than anyone he’s ever met, and realizes he’s actually not too terrible at school when he decides to try. And it’s not all bad; he’s found some friends that don’t make him feel like shit and kissed plenty of girls (but never taken a single one home to his place). He’s starting to really enjoy the party scene, too.

Well, he  _ was _ .

Seeing Billy Hargrove there, though, kind of puts a damper on that plan. (After all, he sort of never expected to see him again. Bloomington’s pretty far away from the sunny sands of Cali. He always imagined Billy had gone back home; not that he’d be so close to him, after months of no-contact.)

His eyes don’t lie to him, though. Billy’s there, live and in living color, mere feet from where he sits.

And maybe he’s a creature of old habits, or maybe it’s a lapse in judgement, but when he leaves the party hours later, Billy’s once again wrapped around his arm, hands meeting skin with an all-too-familiar burn.

There’s no one else he’d rather bring to his apartment. With him there, it almost feels like a home.

He’d never admit it, though.

Because as long as Billy’s kissing him in that clinging-to-oxygen sort of way, and whispering dirty sweet nothings in his ear like old times, he’s happy to just exist in this reality.

~

It’s far from easy, though, falling into old routines. They don’t quite fit within his new reality; there’s less hiding, at least from nosy teenagers, but there’s a whole host of other problems he hadn’t expected to face.

First, Billy’s not exactly the same man who walked (okay, it was more of a run, but Steve’s being generous here) away from him last August, too many months ago. He has a job now, as a repair technician in a garage in Bedford only twenty minutes away. He’s growing his hair out, too, and it looks impossibly-beautiful tied back at the nape of his neck with one of Max’s scrunchies. And he’s smoking cigarettes less and less, which is a welcome surprise. 

Somehow, though, he’s almost more guarded than before.

They don’t talk about how Billy ended up staying in Indiana, or how he wound up so close to Steve’s university of choice. Or why he keeps a sterile bandage taped around his left bicep no matter how naked they get.

Frankly, they don’t talk about much at all, at least in the beginning.

(Old habits, huh?)

But weeks pass, and Billy comes over after work more evenings than not, and he’s even starting to leave clothes at Steve’s place. A shirt or too, even a pair of sweatpants after a long weekend. He even gives Steve a Christmas gift that year— one of his favorite books, J.D. Salinger’s  _ Nine Stories _ anthology— and blushes beet-red when Steve hands him a narrow silver ring that fits perfectly on his pinky finger.

The kissing is good, too, and everything that comes with it is even better. Steve’s gained a lot of experience since coming to college, and Billy is all the more ready and willing to take advantage of that fact. They spend a lot of time pressed up against the shower door, and the walls, and any flat surface they can find. And it’s good, really, really good.

And then Steve just has to go and fuck it up.

“Billy,” he started, not even realizing how royally he was screwing up while the words left his mouth. “Why did you leave?”

Because there’s nothing like ruining a perfectly good friends-with-benefits-and-maybe-more relationship (particularly the second iteration of one) by asking stupid questions, right?

There’s far too many moments of silence, then, and Steve wonders how long he’s got before Billy runs away again— and then he speaks.

“Do you really wanna know?”

Then, there’s nothing more he can do but listen.

“A week before you left, the last night we were together, was the day my dad kicked me out,” Billy said, voice shaking. Steve reached out to touch him, stabilize him, but Billy sat up against the headboard, eyes focused. “He and I had gotten into another one of our stupid fights, and he had gotten a little bit too happy with a kitchen knife, and he told me not to come back. So I came to your place, and I said my stupid little goodbye, and I ran.”

Billy paused, and all Steve could hear were their breaths in tandem and his own heartbeat echoing loud in his chest.

Until Billy carefully peeled off the medi-tape holding down his bandage on his arm, clenched his eyes closed tight, and let it fall down to the bed, leaving the skin there bare.

_ FAG. _

Three letters, plain as day, scarred and red in the golden flesh of Billy’s muscled skin.

“That was his goodbye gift to me, Stevie,” Billy muttered, eyes still shut as if he was hoping it’d stop Steve from seeing. “That’s how Neil Hargrove says  _ adieu,  _ a little token of affection to his only son. He cut me up bad, and kicked me out, and I decided that this time, I’d listen to him, and I’d stay gone.”

“Billy…”

“No, Steve, let me finish,” was Billy’s measured response. “I feel like an ass enough already, especially since I just fucking showed up in your life like this after all of that, please.” That was part of the new-Billy, too, him saying things like “please” and “I’m sorry.”

“I left your house that night, got in my car, and kept driving. Ended up in fuckin’ Boston, drank myself into the gutter for a while, and then sobered up, turned around, and came right back. I don’t know what the fuck I was doing,” Billy faded off, eyes open again and watery. This time, he knew it was his own tears streaming down his face. “I didn’t want you to know he did that, didn’t want you to think it was because of you somehow. I just had to get out, out of Hawkins, out of your life. It was for the best, I guess.”

And no matter what Billy said, Steve couldn’t stay away. He pushed himself onto his forearms and pulled Billy closer, into a shitty half-hug in their awkward positions on the bed. “So it wasn’t just a hookup to you, then?”

(Because Steve Harrington is a man with priorities above all else.)

At least that earned a laugh from Billy, tears flowing all the same.

“Man, fuck you, of course it wasn’t just sex to me,” BIlly chuckled. Quietly, he moved to put the bandage back on his scarred upper arm, as Steve watched.

“You can… you can leave it off if you want.”

So he did, and pulled Steve closer instead.

“Steve Harrington, have you met you? Fucking ‘King Steve,’ you could never just be sex to me,” Billy whispered into the mess of Steve’s hair.

And it’s not an outright declaration of feelings, or anything close to a marriage proposal or a choir singing in Steve’s head, but out of Billy’s mouth, it sounds just like love.


End file.
